Ooh! A Shiny Thing!

OK, I admit it. I'm as bad as all the people I despise who love to watch car chases and "cat gets rescued by local blind man" stories on the news. These pages have been peppered with stories about Cheney being a big man with his big gun. Sue me, it's funny.

But it turns out that other things have actually been happening in the world while we were watching the jangling keys of Cheney's shotgun.

• New Abu Ghraib photos have been released. These are some of the very photos the U.S. government has been trying to suppress for some time now. Salon has a ghastly gallery.
  
• Alito appointed his clerks and they're as right-wing as right-wing can be.
  
• The White House has been pushing crazy hard on congress to learn to stop worrying and love the NSA wiretaps. And it's working.
  
• Bush's first and only appointment not based on cronyism spoke to congress for the first time.
  
• Congress burned Bush big time when it released its report on Hurricane Katrina.
  
• A picture came out with Bush shaking an Abramoff client's hand, with Jack himself smiling politely in the background. More to come on this one.

Other things happened too, I bet.